Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference Reading Series begins July 14

Visiting faculty participating in this year’s Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference at Bemidji State University will have a series of public evening reading sessions on campus beginning July 14.

Public readings are held each night during the conference, from July 14-18, and will be held in the lower Hobson Memorial Union on the BSU campus. Readings start at 7:30 p.m. nightly, except the July 17 reading which begins at 6:30 p.m., and are open free of charge.

This year’s faculty include:
• Jericho Brown, assistant professor at Emory University;
• Danielle Evans, literature and creative writing instructor at American University;
• Camille Dungy, professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University;
• Geoffrey Brock, an instructor in creative writing and translation at the University of Arkansas; and
• Joni Tevis, instructor of literature and creative writing at Furman University.

Distinguished Visiting Writer Ron Carlson
This year’s distinguished visiting writer is novelist Ron Carlson. Carlson is the director of the graduate program in fiction at the University of California, Irvine, and is a noted novelist and short-story writer. His most recent novel, “The Signal,” was published in May of 2010. His short stories have appeared in “Esquire,” “Harpers,” “The New Yorker” and a variety of anthologies including “The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction” and “The Pushcart Prize Anthology.” He also has written a book on writing, “Ron Carlson Writes a Story,” which is widely used by writing teachers.

Carlson has won an NEA Fellowship, the Cohen Prize at “Ploughshares,” the McGinnis Award at the “Iowa Review” and the Aspen Literary Award. His 2008 novel, “Five Skies,” was named One Book Rhode Island in 2009. He published a book of poems, “Room Service,” in 2012, and his new novel, “Return to Oakpine,” will be published in July.

The Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference is made possible by the people of Minnesota through grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Region 2 Arts Council and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.